This book examines the influence that Adam Smith's philosophy had on his economics, drawing on the neglected parts of Smith's writings to show that the political and economic theories built logically on his morals. It analyses the significance of his stoic beliefs, his notions of art and music, astronomy, philosophy and war, and shows that Smith's invisible hand was part of a system' that was meant to replace medieval Christianity with an ethic of virtue in this world rather than the next.
Smith was motivated primarily by a political ideal, a moral version of liberalism. He rejected the...